Beer and Reading

Glad to hear you like Black Leopard; it's next on my list.

Honestly, though, I have a hard time reading while drinking, especially as I get older. I just can't retain as much after even one beer

 

I'm pretty much a science nerd to the bone, especially astronomy, so I look for interesting articles. Somehow, beer and the cosmos go together for me.

 

Quite appropriately, I have been reading the British beer writer Pete Brown lately. I just finished 'World's Best Ciders: Taste, Tradition, and Terroir'. I'm currently in the middle of 'Miracle Brew: Hops, Barley, Water, Yeast and the Nature of Beer'. Several more of his books are on deck after I finish my current read.

 

The last time I was back in England, was at a pub in falmouth called beerwolf books. Yep, there was a bookstore in the middle of the pub.

Currently reading some classics I probably should have read when younger. Don Quixote, after finishing Anna Karenina. Not sure of the wisdom of mixing beer with somewhat depressing literature.

 

I'm an Ugly Things subscriber too. It's nice when I've been spending too much money on beer to take a bit of a break and spend too much money on records instead.

I haven't had much opportunity to get to the library lately so it's the rereading season. In re: fiction I just finished a reread of Denis Johnson's Already Dead and, in nonfiction, I'm nearing the end of a reread of The True and Only Heaven by Christopher Lasch. A fair bit of that rereading was beer-enhanced.

 

Nice.

 

I've enjoyed Pete Brown's books until I got to Shakespeare's Pub which I thought was very dry and it was an effort to finish it. The books that you list must be newer. I have not seen them.

I recently came across a classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which I thoroughly enjoyed.

 

I don't do a lot of casual reading anymore, most of the reading I do is to keep current with technology trends related to my job. I've been slowly making my way through this book which is a pretty interesting read about the history of the Hoosac tunnel.



"For those unfamiliar, The Hoosac Tunnel is a railroad tunnel in the Northern Berkshire towns of Florida and North Adams owned by Guilford Transportation. It runs under the Hoosac range of mountains for a total length of 25,031 feet or 4.74 miles. It took a good 25 years to build and incurred several delays and out right stalls (and you thought the big dig was bad). It took 195 lives during construction, and has taken 30 or more since completion. For more information go to the history section." Source: Hoosactunnel.net


Fascinating place to visit and explore.

 

Right there with you, I’m a fairly voracious reader but find it hard to get far after imbibing.

I just finished Marlon James’ first, John Crow’s Devil, which was pretty quick reading although ultimately pretty darn disturbing. I took my time with Brief History of Seven Killings last summer and enjoyed having a few while sitting outside in the evening getting into that, an absolutely incredible and epic read. About to start The Book of Night Women.

 

You might not want to drink and read Black Leopard then. Its nearly 650 pages of an ultra violent fever dream . I think it is incredible, and something that will stick with me for a long time. Probably not for everyone, but if you stick with it, oh man. Can't wait for the rest of the books now.

Just a note, I constantly, read, have a beer, and listen to music usually at the same time. When I go out to bars, restaurants, or breweries, even cafes I always have at least one book with me, and maybe a back up just in case I'm not really in the mood for one I can grab the other. I think it started when I wanted to read The Ginger Man at the bar in Houston, then Under the Volcano, again at the namesake bar in Houston

 

I can hardly read anymore without a drink. Usually I’ll be reading some beer magazine, as there’s always an unread Craft Beer & Brewing, Beer Advocate, or BYO laying around here. If I’ve exhausted my supply of those (or I’m already in the middle of something else), it’s some novel. The latest Grisham is always a safe bet for me. Last book I read was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise. I’ll probably pick up with The Beautiful and the Damned soon. Also a big fan of anything Michael Crichton, especially his early stuff under the pseudonym John Lange.

 

I like to read fantasy / sci-fI

In addition to the obvious ones like Verne, Tolkien, GRRM, King:

Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn)
Hugh Howey (Wool Trilogy)
Joe Abercrombie (First Law)
Glen Cook (Black Company)
Patrick Rothfuss (Name of the Wind)

 

While I'm up at the cabin, reading is king (no internet/cable).

I'm was an English Lit major/intellectual/book nerd in college. Here goes:

Plato (The Republic)
Mark Twain (Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer)
Albert Camus ( The Stranger, The Rebel)
Herman Hesse (Siddharta, Steppenwolf)
Max Watman (Race Day, Chasing the White Dog)
Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas...man, pretty much everything else.)
Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish, all his French lectures).
Julian Jaynes (The Origin of Consciousness)
Reza Aslan (God: A Human History)
Greg Graffin (Population Wars, Anarchy Evolution)
Chris Salewicz (Redemption Song)
Buddy Guy (When I Left Home)
William Queen (Under and Alone)
Daniel Boorstin (The Image)

That's just the first 4 day snowstorm.

 

I have a B.A. from Pitt in EngLit & like our advisor admonished us on major declaration day, "If you are declaring either EngLit and/or English Writing, you had best like to read!" Ha.

During our Junior Seminar in English Lit, I got lucky enough to have my all-time fave prof for a second semester. Lord Steve Carr gave us a LOT of free reign & three of us led a class meeting on Bukowski!

Like @scream my genre of choice is mystery. The fellow in the upper L of my avatar is pseudo-Great Uncle Raymond Chandler, a distant relative of actual first cousin Colby Chandler of Ballast Point.

I really dig the hardboiled stuff & am mostly caught up on the Akashic Books "Noir" series. I am currently reading "Dead Man's Hand", a collection of poker-related mysteries edited by Otto Penzler. Penzler is the owner of The Mysterious Bookstore & has edited a slew of anthologies, all of which are worthwhile. I just bought a buncha John D. MacDonald's, including "The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper", whose title alludes to one of the most harrowing scenes that I have ever read! Ugh.

Just like on most, if not all, social media, I am NOT trying to hide from anybody. If you get onto GoodReads.com & go to "woodychandler" you CAN see what I am reading at any given time.

Now, time for a beer!

 

Started reading this last night and it is damn good. Not a history guy, but very fascinating.

 

I read it. I think the author writes about beer for the Wall Strret Journal. I don't know where but I read a review of it that piqued my interest even though it wasn't completely positive (I think the reviewer complained about the author talking about himself too much which he kind of does). Anyway I found it an ok read but the only brewery which stood out in my memory is Dogfish Head, about which he made the owner sound more interesting than the rest; although maybe that's because at the time (it's been a long time since I read it) it was the only brewery that I recognized.

 

I love to read while drinking beer, mostly mysteries and true crime.

 

I'm a big short story fan (William Gass, Paul Bowles, Chekhov) and Carver might be the best I've read; the first works of his I read, a small press collection called Furious Seasons, I had a difficult time putting down. Gordon Lish, who on his own was a mediocre writer, used to edit the fuck out of Carver's work and distilled it down to its essence, producing his most compelling work. As he got more famous, and shacking with a third rate hack poet, Tess Gallagher, Carver started pushing back on the edits and the work suffered, full of useless flowery crap that made it something inferior. Not that I'm opinionated or anything...

If you like Carver you might want to try a contemporary writer named Ron Rash; he's an entirely different kind of writer but something in his work grabs me the way Carver did.

 

Pete Brown wrote 3 books in a year. On his blog he claimed he had lost his mind.

 

I haven't been able to get much reading in for the past six months due to working over 50 hours a week, but I do enjoy a nice snifter of imperial stout over a good novel.